The present invention relates to printheads for electrostatic printers, and the like, and, more particularly, to apparatus for forming and attaching an electrostatic printhead to a printed circuit board to make an electrostatic printhead assembly comprising, means for disposing a plurality of wires within an insulating material in a common plane in parallel, spaced relationship; means for cutting the wires and the insulating material adjacent one end of the wires in a plane perpendicular to the wires to form a print head face; means for cutting the wires and the insulating material adjacent the other end of the wires to form an attachment face having the ends of the wires exposed at the surface thereof; means for disposing a plurality of spaced, metal, electrical contacts along the edge of the printed circuit board; means for positioning the printed circuit board with the electrical contacts in adjacent, parallel, spaced relationship with the ends of the wires of the attachment face; and, means for wire bonding connecting wires between the electrical contacts and the exposed ends of the wires of the attachment face.
At present, the manufacturing of the printhead employed in an electrostatic printer is a highly labor-intensive undertaking. As shown in FIG. 1, fine wire 10 having a diameter of about 2 mils, more or less, is evenly wound about the surface of a lathe mandrel 12 rotating as indicated by the arrow 14. Depending on the resolution to be produced by the printer, the wires 10 are arranged in precise straight rows of 100 to 500 per inch across a head-molding cavity 16 longitudinally disposed in the surface of the mandrel 12. Following the wrapping procedure, a mold (not shown) is disposed about the cavity 16 and the mold and cavity 16 are filled with a plastic molding material which, when cured, forms a printhead body 18 having the wires 10 passing therethrough as shown in FIG. 2. The wires 10 are cut flush with the face 20 of the printhead body 18 and the printhead body 18 and wires 10 are separated from the mandrel 12 as shown in FIG. 3. The face 20 typically appears as shown in FIG. 4, comprising two adjacent staggered rows 22 of wires 10. In a typical printhead as employed by the assignee of the present application, there are 14,080 wires 10 emerging from the back 22 of the printhead body 18, which body is approximately three feet in length. As depicted in FIG. 5, the labor-intensive portion of the manufacturing process according to the prior art comprises all 14,080 wires 10 being hand-attached to individual terminals 26 of a printed circuit board 28 by means of which the resultant printhead 30 is connected into the printer. As can be appreciated, handwiring 14,080 wires is a time-consuming process.
Wherefore, it is the object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for automatically assembling the wires of a printhead body as described above to the terminals of a printhead circuit board.
Other objects and benefits of the present invention will become apparent from the description that follows hereinafter taken in conjunction with the drawing figures with accompany it.